RCHS’ 57th annual Holiday Green Show opens today

From left to right: Van Rensselaer Garden Club members Chris Pollock, Willie Bradley Tonya Rotundi and Stephanie Stewart pose for a photograph on the decorated staircase in the Hart-Cluett Mansion after making final preparations for the Rensselaer County Historical Society’s 57th Annual Holiday Greens Show at the society’s headquarters on Second Street in Downtown Troy, N.Y., on Tuesday, Dec. 3. The theme for this year’s show, which runs from Dec. 5 through Dec. 8, is ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” in honor of the 190th anniversary of the first publication of the poem in the Troy Sentinel.
Mike McMahon — The Record

TROY >> What better way to get into the Christmas spirit than to visit the 57th annual Holiday Green Show at the Rensselaer County Historical Society?

The show starts today with their traditional evening of being open to the public from 5 to 8 p.m. This year’s theme is particularly appropriate since it pays homage to a holiday poem that was first published locally and celebrates 190 years this year. That poem, of course, is ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

“There’s been controversy over the years about who wrote the poem but there has never been any doubt that it was first published at The Troy Sentinnel down the street on River Street,” said Rensselaer County Historical Society executive director Ilene Frank.

The Hart-Cluett House has been transformed into a holiday wonderland with large, beautiful trees, eye-catching decorations, and creative wreaths, most of these things are also for sale by the Van Rensselaer Garden Club which organizes the annual decorating endeavor at the 1827 historic house in downtown Troy.

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“The amount of work that garden club has done here is amazing,” said Frank, as she awed at the front parlor’s 12-foot tree which was brought in and set up over the weekend.

Some of the members of the garden club have spent months planning and creating the items now accenting the rooms throughout the mansion.

Tina Anthony of Averill Park, a member of the garden club for eight years, started brainstorming her contribution - decorating the basement kitchen - back in January. The kitchen now has a small live tree she brought all the way from her camp in Maine in August and fresh greenery that has been decorated with dried oranges and homemade gingerbread children that she made with her friend Cathy Nicolas.

“We did a little bit at a time,” said Anthony modestly. She also dried out a gourd to highlight a table in the middle which had an excerpt from the poem written on the dried vegetable: “The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.” Next to the gourd, was a pipe with fake smoke coming from it.

“My father liked to smoke the pipe so I wanted to show that part of the poem,” Anthony said. She noted it took about two days to dry out all of the oranges in a food dehydrator. This is her last year working with the Green Show since she plans to move to Florida next year.

About 70 people helped with the show this year, estimated Jill Filuta with the garden club.

“People come here to get ideas for their own houses or to buy a wreath if they do not have time to make one,” she said.

Past themes have included Christmas carols and Dickens novels.

The Green Show is $7 for adults, $5 for seniors, $3 for children over four, and free for children under four. Tonight, Thursday, is free and open to the public. There is a $10 candle lit tour on Friday starting at 5:30 p.m. That day, from noon to 5p.m., is Sage Day at the Green Show in which students and faculty are free. Saturday is breakfast with Santa which is $30 for a family of four and includes cookie decorating and storytime with Santa. Sunday is the 31st annual Victorian Stroll.

About 1,000 people see the show during the stroll and about 2,000 people total usually see the show throughout the days it is open, officials said.